NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer breaks down late-race yellow at Indianapolis
NASCAR.com's Alex Weaver catches up with Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer about the late-race yellow at Indianapolis and the first overtime restart that saw Brad Keselowski pull off when he ran out of fuel.
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00:00Here in the NASCAR Cup Series garage following the Brickyard 400 with senior vice president of competition for NASCAR Elton Sawyer
00:06Let's walk through the decisions on the last lap. Can you take me through NASCAR's decisions on that on that following lap? Yeah, obviously
00:13Alex we'd like for it to play out naturally, you know, we want our teams to race to the checkered flag
00:18We did everything we possibly could we kept an eye on the 41. He got turned around
00:23He was he was really given a solid effort
00:26And once he came to a stop and we could tell that he had a I think a flat left rear tire
00:30He wasn't gonna move. We'd already taken the white. We just couldn't run by there again. So it was unfortunate
00:37But it what it was the right call
00:40Obviously we saw that it was on the last lap
00:42But would the call have been the same if it was earlier in the race?
00:45I think you know when it comes to safety and we have cars that have spun out and they're trying to make an effort
00:51To move we're gonna do everything we can to stay green
00:54But you know again, it's a case-by-case basis and
00:58You know, we'd have to you know, it's a lot of hypotheticals there
01:02Can you also take me through when the six abandoned the race and the restart and the rechoose?
01:08Yeah, so we had already gone through the choose process
01:10so we were coming to green when the six pulled off which allowed the five to pull up which
01:17Transferred the control vehicle to the twelve and this all happens, you know fairly quick there. So
01:23You know hindsight, I think we still let it play out the way it did
01:27We'll discuss that more if we had have thrown the caution
01:32hypothetically
01:33We wouldn't have gone through a choose process again
01:36The twelve would have been the control vehicle, but he wouldn't have got lane choice. That's the way the rule is written
01:42Thank you for that breakdown. Thank you. Thank you